Marketo, watch your back. A new generation of marketing automation platforms is taking aim at the software giant, promising alternatives to its longstanding complexity and high operating costs.

Paminga, Inflection.io, Conversion.ai, and Phave are all positioning themselves as alternatives to traditional MAPs. Some are going after HubSpot, Pardot, and Eloqua customers too, but Marketo keeps coming up in the conversation.

They aren’t being subtle about it. Inflection tells marketers to “Replace Marketo, finally.” Paminga has a Marketo Translator to help customers migrate from Marketo to its platform. Phave was founded by people who helped build Marketo in the first place.

I’ve spent years working in Marketo, and I understand why these companies see an opportunity. It’s powerful software, but it’s also expensive, complicated, and notoriously difficult to learn. Its architecture might not keep up with the changing landscape.

But these frustrations aren’t new.…